ORMC trauma center provides outstanding service

By Dr. Darwin Noel AngSpecial to the Star-Banner

Published: Friday, February 8, 2013 at 6:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 8:59 p.m.

How much of a difference would it make to build a trauma center in the most underserved area for trauma services in Florida? I think I've found the answer. Since Dec. 8, the provisional trauma center in Ocala Regional Medical Center has treated more than 270 patients.

Growing a trauma center is not an easy task because it takes the dedication, commitment and sometimes the self-sacrifice of many people. It's not just a hospital, but a community of professionals who care. It takes on the challenge of one or many injured people and delivers them through the hands of many caring individuals. The only thing we know is that someone needs our help. We pass human life from one set of hands to another, trusting that the right thing will be done. To build a trauma center, it takes a paradigm shift. In other words, changing the way we see the world as we know it and making it accommodate something else. That change is happening around us.

I think a trauma center can be controversial to a community because it asks the community to step up not 75 percent of the time, but all the time. If we all agree that there is nothing more valuable than human life, and if we all decide to take this responsibility on, then our commitment to this endeavor should be second to none.

The question is how do you measure that commitment? Is it based on the volume of cheers of bringing a heartbeat back after cardiac massage, or the tears of losing that same person in the operating room? Or was it the deafening silence afterwards? Is it the number of hands on the patient during a trauma resuscitation in the emergency room? Or is it the number of embraces for families in moments of despair or joy?

How about the sheer number of local physicians, medics, therapists, nurses, hospital staff and leaders who meet monthly to objectively look at and study our outcomes to improve patient care? It is all of that and more.

As a trauma center, we live and breathe trauma, but only to serve you. However, competing interests outside our region have forced us to question this positive change in our community. They are even asking the state of Florida to take all of this away from us.

They do this in the face of positive outcomes from our trauma center that will have lasting effects on our community. I see it in the eyes of the people we care for and the people I work with side by side every day. In fact, there is no stronger proof than the walking miracles that grace our halls; people whose chances of survival are nearly zero but are now not only alive, but have full function.

In good conscience, I can say that the new trauma center has given outstanding service and outcomes to a community that needs its services the most. We will continue to loyally serve and care for all the injured in our area. We must defend our right to have lifesaving care locally. And I know our community would not have it any other way.

Dr. Darwin Noel Ang, M.D.,Ph.D., MPH FACS, is trauma medical director for Ocala Health, director of research for the HCA/USF Trauma Network and associate professor at the University of South Florida.

<p>How much of a difference would it make to build a trauma center in the most underserved area for trauma services in Florida? I think I've found the answer. Since Dec. 8, the provisional trauma center in Ocala Regional Medical Center has treated more than 270 patients.</p><p>Growing a trauma center is not an easy task because it takes the dedication, commitment and sometimes the self-sacrifice of many people. It's not just a hospital, but a community of professionals who care. It takes on the challenge of one or many injured people and delivers them through the hands of many caring individuals. The only thing we know is that someone needs our help. We pass human life from one set of hands to another, trusting that the right thing will be done. To build a trauma center, it takes a paradigm shift. In other words, changing the way we see the world as we know it and making it accommodate something else. That change is happening around us.</p><p>I think a trauma center can be controversial to a community because it asks the community to step up not 75 percent of the time, but all the time. If we all agree that there is nothing more valuable than human life, and if we all decide to take this responsibility on, then our commitment to this endeavor should be second to none.</p><p>The question is how do you measure that commitment? Is it based on the volume of cheers of bringing a heartbeat back after cardiac massage, or the tears of losing that same person in the operating room? Or was it the deafening silence afterwards? Is it the number of hands on the patient during a trauma resuscitation in the emergency room? Or is it the number of embraces for families in moments of despair or joy?</p><p>How about the sheer number of local physicians, medics, therapists, nurses, hospital staff and leaders who meet monthly to objectively look at and study our outcomes to improve patient care? It is all of that and more.</p><p>As a trauma center, we live and breathe trauma, but only to serve you. However, competing interests outside our region have forced us to question this positive change in our community. They are even asking the state of Florida to take all of this away from us.</p><p>They do this in the face of positive outcomes from our trauma center that will have lasting effects on our community. I see it in the eyes of the people we care for and the people I work with side by side every day. In fact, there is no stronger proof than the walking miracles that grace our halls; people whose chances of survival are nearly zero but are now not only alive, but have full function.</p><p>In good conscience, I can say that the new trauma center has given outstanding service and outcomes to a community that needs its services the most. We will continue to loyally serve and care for all the injured in our area. We must defend our right to have lifesaving care locally. And I know our community would not have it any other way.</p><p><i>Dr. Darwin Noel Ang, M.D.,Ph.D., MPH FACS, is trauma medical director for Ocala Health, director of research for the HCA/USF Trauma Network and associate professor at the University of South Florida.</i></p>